Judge Reverses Ridiculous $625 Million Patent Award Against Apple Over Cover Flow, Spotlight & Time Machine

from the smart-judge dept

Last fall, we wrote about yet another in a long line of ridiculous patent lawsuits. This one, filed against Apple, got some extra attention, because the lawsuit was filed by Mirror Worlds, a spinoff from Yale University, founded by Prof. David Gelertner, who was complaining in the press that he wasn't getting "credit" for these inventions which Apple was accused of infringing on. Of course, the patents seemed pretty general:

• 6,006,227: Document stream operating system
• 6,638,313: Document stream operating system
• 6,725,427: Document stream operating system with document organizing and display facilities
• 6,768,999: Enterprise, stream-based, information management system

Still, as happens all too often in patent jury trials, the jury becomes enamored with the myth of the "American inventor" as a patent holder, and sided with Mirror Worlds in a massive way, claiming that Apple's features of Spotlight, Cover Flow and Time Machine didn't just infringe on these patents, but that the company owed over $200 million on each technology.

Apple responded, by pointing out that this ruling was plainly ridiculous, and thankfully, the judge in the case has agreed, pretty much tossing out the whole thing, noting that while the patents may still be valid, Apple did not infringe, and even if it did infringe, the damages awards were ridiculous.

It seems likely that Mirror Worlds will appeal, so this case probably isn't over yet, but it's nice to see a judge (in East Texas, too!) actually point out that the jury got this one totally and completely wrong.

Filed Under: coverflow, patents
Companies: apple, mirror worlds

Apple Ordered To Pay Over $600 Million... For Patent Infringement Of Cover Flow?

from the you-can't-be-serious dept

I'd been meaning to write about the absolutely ridiculous Mirror Worlds patent infringement lawsuit against Apple for a few weeks now, not realizing a ruling was going to come so quickly. A few weeks ago, the Yale local newspaper had a really laughable one-sided article talking about how Apple had "stolen" the technology behind three of its offerings: cover flow, spotlight and time machine, because a Yale spinoff company, Mirror Worlds, had sued Apple for patent infringement. The original lawsuit covered four patents:

• 6,006,227: Document stream operating system
• 6,638,313: Document stream operating system
• 6,725,427: Document stream operating system with document organizing and display facilities
• 6,768,999: Enterprise, stream-based, information management system

The Yale article only takes the side of Yale computer science professor David Gelernter, who whines about not getting "credit" for his brilliant invention. Either that, or perhaps (just perhaps) multiple people were able to come up with the same basic ideas. This is what's so frustrating about reporting on patent issues. Everyone likes to report on how ideas were "stolen," when the vast majority of cases involve independent invention (often of obvious ideas).

This case went quickly, and amazingly the court has ordered Apple to pay over $600 million, claiming that it infringed on three of the patents and that it has to pay over $200 million for each of the three products that infringed. Apple is appealing, noting that, at the very least, charging $200 million on each product is, in effect, "triple dipping."

What's left unsaid is the blatant insanity of having to pay anywhere near $200 million for the way in which you display CD covers in iTunes. How anyone can see such a verdict and not think the patent system is horribly, horribly broken is beyond me.

Filed Under: coverflow, david gelernter, patents, reasonableness
Companies: apple, mirror worlds